


Procatstination

by katrinawritesthings



Category: SHINee
Genre: Brotp, Fantasy, OT5, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-10-20 20:49:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10670502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinawritesthings/pseuds/katrinawritesthings
Summary: Taemin looks down at his own tiny little black kitty paws and yellow legs, concentrates for a moment and feels his little kitty tail wiggling behind him. Oh. It worked. He tries to say, “So magic is real.”It comes out as a meow instead.tumblr





	Procatstination

In the three seconds it takes Taemin to pick and choose one of the recommended videos to watch next, he starts thinking about The Thing again. He sighs as he taps a promising looking cat video and waits for it to load. This distraction tactic isn’t working as well as he’d hoped it would. The string of anime memes, dance choreos, and now cats keep his attention while they're playing, but as soon as he gets a moment to think back on himself his thoughts turn down again. He’s so upset. He hates when a Thing latches onto his brain. It’s already been a few days but he’s still not gonna be able to stop thinking about this for a week. **  
**

It’s not even anything _important_ ; it’s a bullshit whatever that happened over ten years ago that he thought he was over but apparently is still bitter as fuck about. It grates at his nerves, fills him with anger at both how fucking _unfair_ it was then and how fucking ridiculous it is that he’s still thinking about it now. His life would be a lot easier if his brain didn’t feel the need to bring up old shit for no reason and then ruminate on it for weeks on end.

His life would be a lot easier if he was a cat, too, he thinks, smiling weakly at the cute little kitties snuggling on his screen. Cats don’t have to deal with shit. They just get to sleep all day and eat when they want and get pets from everyone all the time and be super cute. _Cats_ don’t have to worry about how worrying about shit from half a lifetime ago is stressing them out and making them lose sleep. Cats don’t have to show up to photoshoots and performances fueled on probably lethal combinations of coffee and energy drinks.

He glances at the time in the corner of his laptop screen. Speaking of schedule shit, he thinks he has to be on a radio show in the morning. He should probably try to sleep soon--or, maybe not. It’s not even midnight. He thought it was much later than that, but no, as he watches, the clock turns to 11:11 PM. He has plenty of time. He stares at the little numbers and feels his lips twitch up at his next thought. 11:11, huh. Magic and shit. Wouldn’t that just solve all of his problems? He knows that it won’t work, but he runs his fingers through his hair and opens his mouth anyway, just for fun.

“I wish I was a cat,” he sighs.

Then he’s a cat.

He realizes this almost immediately, as it’s really fucking obvious when one stops being a human and starts being a feline. His laptop falls over on the bed as his lap disappurrs from under it, and he tumbles onto the blankets as he’s suddenly several feet smaller with four legs. The disgruntled noise that spills out of his lips is the cutest kitty noise he’s ever heard in his life.

After it happens, he sits there for a few moments, snuggly and warm in the little dent in the blankets where his human butt was just seconds ago, and watches the rest of the kitten video he was on. Then it ends and he looks down at his own tiny little black kitty paws and yellow legs, concentrates for a moment and feels his little kitty tail wiggling behind him. Oh. It worked. He tries to say, “So magic is real.”

It comes out as a meow instead.

Hmm. He should probably do something about this. Or tell someone. But no one is home right now, and he doesn’t know how he would tell anyone anyway. And there’s another cat video in the recommended section that is practically calling out to him. He fumbles clumsily to straighten out his laptop, then tries to use the trackpad to click on the video before he gives up on that and just baps the tab button five hundred times until it selects the video for him. Haha. There. Nailed it. And his paw is fucking adorable.

Some number of cat videos later, his laptop dies on him and he meows out a curse. Fuck. He knew he should've plugged the charger in earlier. He rolls over onto his back, wiggles his little paws in the air, and spends a few minutes trying to figure out how to extend and retract his claws. That could come in handy. Then he lets out a sigh because he really should get onto the whole “figuring this out” thing. It’s almost midnight. Someone is bound to be home soon. He gets onto his feet, then slinks to the end of the bed and peeps down. It seems a lot farther to the floor than it ever did when he was almost six feet tall.

Whatever. It’s just a bed. He’s a cat. This should be like nothing to him. Cats always land on their feet anyway. He takes a breath, leans forward once, twice, and jumps.

He jumps way too fucking far, stumbles, and almost crashes into the dresser. He stops short just before that, though, so he counts it as a success. Then he makes a note to himself: cats are extremely springy and one doesn’t need to jump even half as hard as one would at first expect.

Making his way down the hallway, he trips over himself a little bit as he attempts to get used to walking on four legs. This is so weird. He thinks he’s got it down well enough by the time he reaches the kitchen, which is just in time for him to attempt to figure out how to get on top of the table. He can just jump, right? Cats can jump that high. He can totally do this. Hell, he’ll probably fuck up and jump too high again. He crouches himself up into a little ball, wiggles his little kitty butt because some kind of instinct is telling him that that’s the right thing to do right now, and jumps.

This time, he jumps just the right amount of height but way too far forward and bashes his head on the underside of the table.

He kind of just lies on the floor for a few minutes after that and thinks about his life. He thinks he just lost one of his nine right there. After a while, he gets up again and scoots up to the nearest chair, struggling to his hind legs with his paws on the seat. Hmm. Yeah. He can manage this. He hops up there, and then hops up onto the table. His tail knocks over the pepper and he hisses softly before he fumbles to set it up straight again. He’s going to have to get used to this quicker, before he breaks a vase or something.

Probably the “something.”

He doesn’t think they even have any vases.

For now, he swishes his tail around until he figures out how to curl it around his legs, then settles down into a little cat loaf in the center of the table. Too bad it’s made out of wood and not glass. He bets his little kitty feeties are fucking adorable all tucked under him like this.

It’s a bit of a wait, but eventually, his ears pick up footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hallway to their dorm, the sounds of the lock code being entered in. Somewhere around midnight-thirty, he thinks, is when he first smells the all too familiar scent of Kibum’s cologne. Also mixed in with his bandmate’s scent is the leather of a car seat, various makeup powders, and a tiny hint of what he knows to be Infinite’s dorm.

And by tiny, he means he doesn’t think he even smelled this much of the band when he was literally in their building. He thought the regular smell of _this_ dorm was kind of overwhelming. How could one person bring so many different smells? Being a cat is so fucking disorienting. He’s so busy trying to stop smelling Kibum that he doesn’t even notice when Kibum walks into the kitchen, stops, and stares at him until he speaks.

“Cat,” he says blankly. Taemin blinks. Cat. That’s him. He’s the cat. He stares at Kibum as Kibum stares back at him, bewildered; then he meows. He meant to say “hi.” Close enough, he guesses. Kibum frowns at him, shrugging his bag off of his shoulder and coming forward towards the table. “Aren’t you a cute little kitty,” he says, reaching forward with a gentle hand. Taemin recoils for a second before he realizes that Kibum is just trying to pet him, and then he leans into the touch instead. Kibum’s hands are always so soft.

“Where’d you come from, little buddy?” Kibum mumbles. He gently floofs the fur around Taemin’s neck in search of a collar that Taemin doesn’t have. “Hmm,” he hums. “How the fuck did you get in here?” That question is mumbled more to himself than Taemin. Taemin nuzzles against his hand even as he frowns to himself. Shit. He didn’t even think about figuring out how to actually tell people that he’s him. He’s pretty sure that he can’t write with these paws, and his laptop is dead, and a phone screen would be way too small for him, and all of the fridge magnets are just D’s…. He looks around the table quickly.

Aha. There. Next to some paperwork and shit is one of their albums just lying around. He leaves Kibum’s hand to slink over to it and push it forward, rest his paw over his own face. Kibum tsks at him though, and tugs it away.

“Don’t scratch that, it’s the one I was gonna give to Woohyun.”

“Well why the fuck did you leave it here before you went to their dorm then?” Taemin snaps. It all just comes out as one long series of cat noises. He makes another out of disgust when he realizes. This is harder than he thought. Kibum doesn’t even look like he heard him; he’s frowning at the album in his hand.

“Shit,” he mumbles, “I was supposed to take this with me.”

“That’s what I just--” Taemin meows in despair and wilts onto his side on the table before he even finishes trying to speak. Kibum must think he’s one fucked up cat. Maybe he can just kind of lie here until someone else comes home or realizes that he’s missing. He curls up in the middle of the table to get comfortable and hisses at Kibum every time he tries to pick him up until his bandmate gives up and grumbles something about dealing with this in the morning.

Taemin doesn’t think he meant morning, like, in the AM in general. He thinks he meant like, after he goes to sleep and wakes up when the sun is up and shit. Either way, soon after he finishes his quick dinner of some overly-spiced chicken recipe (that Taemin steals part of), he gets to deal with it then in the form of Jonghyun and Minho coming back into the dorm from wherever it is that they went. From the smell of them, the gym and some sushi place. Maybe they brought back leftovers.

He gets to his feet before Kibum even looks up because he can smell and hear them coming from down the hallway. Kibum cocks a brow at him and asks him what’s up, so Taemin meows towards the hallway from the door just as it opens. Minho comes around first and waves at Kibum without even noticing Taemin; Jonghyun rounds the corner after and immediately drops his bag.

 _“Taemin_?” he asks, stepping towards the table slowly. Taemin perks up with ecstasy and straight up jumps into Jonghyun’s arms. He doesn’t even care how Jonghyun knew that the cat on the table was him. He’s just fucking glad to be recognized, and he meows his happiness as Jonghyun bundles him up in his warm hands. “Taemin, shit, how did you turn into a cat?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Kibum asks. He’s squinting at Jonghyun with the most confused look Taemin has ever seen when he wiggles around in Jonghyun’s arms. “That’s not Taemin.”

“Uh,” Jonghyun says. “Yes he is?” Taemin meows again because yes, yes he is Taemin. Kibum holds up his hand and shakes his hand instead of actually saying anything; Jonghyun rolls his eyes and holds Taemin up gently. “His eyes are literally Taemin’s. And how would a wild cat with black paws, blonde legs, white fur and purple tips get into our dorm?” he asks. Taemin blinks. White fur? Purple tips? He didn’t even notice. He’s only seen his legs. He swishes his tail up to see for the first time since he changed, and yeah. White and purple. View era chic. Huh. Look at that. Aesthetic. He guesses his legs and little feeties are just like that because he hasn’t touched up his roots lately. That has to make some kind of magic sense.

“Okay, yeah, but--that’s not--he can’t--”

“This cat is Taemin,” Jonghyun says flatly. Taemin nods as best he can with his cute little kitty head. Kibum continues to frown.

“How,” he says. Taemin feels like he still doesn’t believe them; he doesn’t care, either, because as soon as he asks, Taemin remembers something very very important. He wiggles in Jonghyun’s arms, struggling to get down. Jonghyun sets him gently down on the floor immediately and Taemin nyooms as fast as he can without tripping over himself to the bag that he dropped a minute ago. Jonghyun always takes his laptop with him. He paws at the bag insistently until Jonghyun comes over and unzips it for him, and then noses his way inside and pokes at the laptop until Jonghyun grabs that. Then he slinks back to the table and pounces up, waiting for Jonghyun to start it up and open a writing program or something.

“Bruh,” Kibum says as Taemin places his little kitty paw over the shift key. Almost as soon as he starts, Taemin realizes that he won’t be able to write an actual full sentence. He types out “I ,masde a nm q1,” then gets frustrated and bats at the keyboard for a second for some _real_ gibberish with a hiss.

“That’s so fucking cute,” Jonghyun whispers. He sits down and props his chin up in his hands, squishing his cheeks together; Taemin throws him a glare. “Sorry,” Jonghyun grins quickly _. Sorry._ Hmf. Taemin turns back to the keyboard and tries slower this time, slow and careful.

“11;11 wish,” he types. Yeah. Close enough. Fuck the shift key. When he’s done, he pushes the laptop away and peers up at the others. It’s just starting to dawn on him how fucking big they are when he’s this small. It’s kind of unsettling, looking up at Jonghyun from an angle this steep. All three of them look blankly at the screen for long enough to Taemin to get impatient and meow. Then, it’s Minho to break the silence with the first thing he’s said all night.

“So magic is real.”

There’s another silence, in which all of them stare at Minho now instead.

“Well, no shit,” Jonghyun says. Taemin meows sadly and lies on his side because yes, magic is very much real and he is proof. “Oooohhhhh,” Jonghyun says, looking at him with sad eyes. He reaches for Taemin and picks him up again, setting him in his lap. “Oh, oh, oh, no, you’re such a pretty pretty kitty, don’t feel bad,” he whines. Taemin purrs softly when Jonghyun scratches behind his ears. He’s quickly forgetting about his problem under Jonghyun’s fingers. This just feels… so good. He rolls over in Jonghyun’s lap until Jonghyun gets the hint and rubs his tummy. Oh. Fuck. Yes. This is heaven. “You’re so cute,” Jonghyun whispers, fluffing him all up with gentle fingers.

“He’s just _Taemin,_ ” Kibum scoffs, lips curling down in distaste at Jonghyun’s fawning. Taemin swishes his tail in front of his face. Rude. Jonghyun doesn’t even look up as he continues to pet Taemin all over.

“Yeah, and he’s so cute, so pretty, yes you are,” he coos, “the floofiest sweetest prettiest little kittae, that’s you.”

That’s him. Taemin purrs loudly, nuzzling Jonghyun’s stomach and playing with his fingers. Never before has he appreciated Jonghyun’s overflowing love for pets like now. He was right. Being a cat is so much better than being a human. Kibum stands up with a roll of his eyes after watching Jonghyun coddle him for a moment, mumbling again about dealing with this in the morning. Minho leaves soon after too, sleepily grinning something about Jinki owing him fifty dollars. Jonghyun takes Taemin to the couch to snuggle him up even more with sweet compliments and gentle kissies and soft pets.

~

In the morning, Taemin is nestling up against the coffee machine because it’s toasty and warm and smells lovely. The other three are already gone to their schedules and he’s been left alone. So far, he’s not complaining. This is so nice. All three gave him pets and snuggles before they left and Kibum even cooked up some food special for him. Now all he has to do is wait for Jinki to come home--and judging by the smell of energy drinks and old makeup coming towards the door, that should be any minute now. His life is so easy.

Jinki shuffles into the dorm half asleep it looks like, rubbing his already smudged makeup over his face and then yawning into his hand. Taemin watches him lazily as he drags himself to the coffee machine. Late night filmings. He feels that feel. Jinki blinks blearily at his coffee mug as it fills up, and then shifts his gaze to Taemin. They look at each other for a moment.

“Purple cat,” Jinki mumbles. He reaches over to pet Taemin’s head. His hand is large and warm and Taemin nuzzles into it happily. “Who are you, pretty kitty?” he asks. Taemin lifts his head enough to see the little collar that Minho made for him earlier. Jinki takes the charm and reads off, “Lee literal cool cat Taemin.” Then he hums, letting it go and scratching behind Taemin’s ears again. “So magic is real, huh,” he says. Taemin nods with a little meow and Jinki smiles fondly. “I owe Minho some money,” he says to himself. Taemin smiles, amused. He bets he looks so fucking adorable right now.

“You don’t have any important schedules, do you?” Jinki asks, taking his coffee from under the spout and taking a sip. Taemin shakes his head. Some radio show, a salon date, nothing too important. He rolls onto his back so Jinki can pet his tummy, and also so Jinki can read the note that he was sitting on. Kibum scrawled it out this morning before he left. It’s just stuff about how Taemin turned, what foods cats are allergic to, how they all came to an agreement that if Taemin turned into a cat because of an 11:11 wish, he should be able to wish himself back with another one. Jinki reads it all blearily, flips it to the backside to check, and then shrugs, stuffing it in his pocket.

“I mean, I guess,” he shrugs again. Taemin wiggles in agreement. Yeah. Same.

Jinki stands there while he finishes his coffee, petting Taemin all over and dangling a crumpled piece of string from his pocket for Taemin to lazily bat at. When he’s done, he washes his mug and then yawns, stretching his hands over his head.

“I’m gonna go take a nap,” he says. “Wanna come sleep with me?” He points with his thumb over his shoulder to his room and Taemin perks up immediately. That sounds great. Jinki is so comfortable all the time. He follows Jinki down the hallway, slinking through his legs and hopping up on his bed with considerably more skill than he would have last night. Jinki lets him curl up right on his stomach and he purrs softly, soaking in his warmth and the soft meowtion of him breathing. Being a cat is so great.

~

Four days later, and Taemin is starting to think that being a cat is not so great. He watches his tail flick in front of his face listlessly as he sits on his own. Kibum cooks him special gourmet kitty food, which is nice, and Jinki bought him a little kitty toy to play with yesterday, which was also nice. Jonghyun picks him up and nuzzles him all over whenever he comes home and he spent like, two hours in Minho’s lap yesterday enjoying what he’s sure were the best pets any cat has ever experienced. When the others are around it’s fine, but when they all leave the dorm to do their own shit, and Taemin is left on his own again, he thinks about exactly the same shit that turned him into a cat in the first place.

Surprisingly enough, turning into a cat didn’t make any of his previous problems disappear. It only clouded them out for a while, but now that the novelty of having four legs is over, they’ve come back even more clawful than before. He sighs, nuzzling more into himself. The Thing has invaded his mind again, is keeping him from sleeping away the time that the others aren’t here. He doesn’t appreciate it at all.

Eight 11:11s have passed since the first one and he’s missed all of them. Three were on accident, admittedly, but the other five were… not. He saw the time and quickly glanced away, curled up into a tiny little ball of fur and ignored it. He doesn’t want to be human again yet. He doesn’t want to have to deal with The Thing _and_ his regular human shit. He wants a break. It’s selfish--it’s not exactly easy for the others and their manager to cover up his disapurrance and he knows he’s worrying them and he knows that putting off his problems are just going to make them worse later--but he can’t bring himself to make the wish. His lack of responsibilities for the time being is making him feel better, but also worse, guilty, stressed, and just generally bad. But at least he also feels cute, and at least he has time to relax. He thinks maybe he’ll aggressively think about the choreo for their next song until it drowns out The Thing and puts him to sleep.

Somehow he winds up repeating the _ditditdit_ part of the Lucifer choreo over and over in his head instead. It’s not exactly what he wanted, but he rolls with it. The repetition will soothe him to sleep, he guesses. He’s just pulling his tail closer to hug under his chin when suddenly everything is shaking around him and the world immediately gets more bright. He poofs up, scared out of his fucking fur, and looks up when the movement stops almost as soon as it started. A shirtless Minho is looking down at him blankly, hair mussed and eyes tired. Taemin didn’t even hear him coming home.

“What are you doing in my dresser?” he asks after a moment. Taemin blinks, wiggling more in his little nest of Minho’s sweaters. Oh, yeah. He’s in here. It just. Smelled so nice. He meows innocently, trying to look as cute as possible; Minho rolls his eyes and lifts him out. “You’re gonna get cat hair all over my shit,” he mumbles, even as he scratches behind Taemin’s ears. Taemin meows once more in apawlogy. The Thing starts slinking into his mind again so he invites himself to get cat hair all over Minho’s pillow instead because there’s an eighty percent chance that Minho will pet him to sleep when he gets out of the shower.

~

“Oh--Taem--Taemin, look--!”

Taemin winces when Kibum gently taps along his back. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. He knew staying up to watch a late movie with everyone would be a bad idea. Seventeen more seconds. He can stall for seventeen seconds. He stands up quickly, acting surprised, like he hasn’t been sweating out the seconds of tonight’s 11:11. He takes his time in looking up.  Ten more--

“Taemin, make the wish,” Kibum says urgently. Taemin fucks around for another six seconds “looking” for the clock, and then, it’s a blessed short three until the number ticks over to 11:12. He slumps back down on Kibum’s legs in relief. He’s still procrastinating, still hiding. Kibum mistakes his happiness for disappointment and pets him gently, fluffing up his tail. “Maybe next time, yeah?” he says soothingly.

“Don’t worry about it,” Minho adds from the other side of the couch. He reaches over to pet Taemin as well while Jinki nods. Their gentle reassurance just makes Taemin feel worse. He slinks to the floor, using everyone’s assumptions to his advantage. He’ll go curl up in his bed and feel guilty about being relieved on his own. As he passes Jonghyun sprawled out on the floor, Jonghyun reaches out and pets down his back with a look that doesn’t exactly fill him with confidence.

When he’s curled up under his blankets five minutes later and he hears footsteps coming down the hallway, he sighs, wiggling out to flop over his pillow instead. Jonghyun knocks gently and then peeps in after Taemin’s sad, not-at-all-surprised meow. He should’ve expected that Jonghyun would still be able to read him as well as a cat as he can when he’s a human.

“Hey,” Jonghyun says, slipping forward to sit on Taemin’s bed. He pats his lap invitingly; Taemin hesitates for a moment, then crawls in between his knees. He keeps his eyes down until Jonghyun gently cups his head and lures him to look up with scratches behind his ears. What a big cheater. Jonghyun looks seriously into his eyes before he speaks again. “You’re avoiding making the wish, aren’t you?” he asks quietly.

Taemin pulls his head away and flops over Jonghyun’s legs, dejected. One for yes and two for no are what the five of them agreed on, so he gives Jonghyun’s knee one tiny, tiny, tiny little pap with his paw. Jonghyun sighs out a deep breath that makes Taemin bury his face in his thigh guiltily. He knows. A gentle hand runs down his back slowly, soothingly.

“Do you… _want_ to turn back?” Jonghyun asks. Taemin pats his knee once. Of course he does. Jonghyun hums. “But you’re not ready,” he guesses. Taemin pats him once again. “Is it because you’re scared?” Jonghyun asks. Taemin gives him two little pats this time. “Scared” isn’t how he would describe it, no. Jonghyun pokes his paw with a soft little laugh and Taemin hisses softly. He thought they were having a serious conversation here and Jonghyun’s getting caught up in how cute he is again. “Sorry,” Jonghyun grins, scritching under his chin quickly.

“Do you not want to go to your schedules?” Jonghyun asks. Taemin lifts his paw, then hesitates. After a moment, he gives three pats, their code for “maybe” or “kind of.” Jonghyun makes a knowing little noise. “You want some time?” he asks, and after Taemin pats him once, “Something else on your mind?” Taemin switches to his other paw for his next pat because his left one is starting to feel kind of weird. Jonghyun is silent for another few moments as he thinks. “Is it The Thing still?”

Taemin blinks up at him, mildly confused for a few seconds before he remembers the conversation he had with Jonghyun over a week ago when The Thing first started bugging him. He was half falling asleep at the time, but still grumpy, still sad, still furstrated with his own brain. He gives Jonghyun one slow pat with the saddest kitty eyes he can muster and Jonghyun sighs, picking him up gently to bundle him up and lie down. Taemin nuzzles under his chin, trying not to think about The Thing too much even though Jonghyun’s brought it up. Lately he’s noticed that he starts digging his claws into whatever’s under them when he thinks too long about how unfair it was. He doesn’t want to poke holes into Jonghyun.

“I know… you can’t really get over things as quickly as I do,” Jonghyun says. “But if it’s not anything big… it’s almost been two weeks, Tae.” He takes Taemin’s little kitty paws in his hands and wiggles them gently, insistently. “It was like, ten years ago. It was fucked up and you deserved better but… think about now. They’re sad and lonely and probably still a fuckboy right now and you’re….” he trails off, frowning at the ceiling for a moment. “Well, right now you’re a cat,” he says, grimacing like his little speech hasn’t gone quite exactly to plan. “But--when you’re not a cat, you’re not usually sad and not lonely and not a fuckboy.” He boops Taemin’s nose with a little smile. “You’re way better off than them right now. What they did shouldn’t have any sort of effect on you anymore. And they don’t deserve a second of your thoughts. You have better stuff to use your energy on. You can’t let it keep bothering you.”

Jonghyun means well with all of this stuff that he’s saying. He really does, but it’s not helping at all. Taemin can’t really blame him, though. Usually when he complains to Jonghyun about stuff it’s about self-esteem stuff, which usually _is_ helped by his little logic paths. This is a completely different problem though, and Taemin knows that he just has to wait for it to pass. Still, he appreciates Jonghyun’s attempts to help, so he nuzzles his hand thankfully before he wiggles off of him and back onto his pillow. He kind of just wants to sleep now. Jonghyun gets the hint and gives his butt a little pat before he gets up and moves to his own bed on the other side of the room.

“No pressure,” Jonghyun says once he gets settled. “Take as long as you need, just… we miss human you.”

Taemin misses human him also.

~

When Taemin finally does wish himself back, it’s two days later and when he transforms, he’s naked.

He really should have seen that coming. Good thing no one else was around. He’s a little disoriented and clumsy in the shower, but he doesn’t mind dropping the shampoo bottle once or twice if it means washing all of these stray cat germs off of him. He’s probably never going to stop finding cat hair on all of his shit, but whatever. He’s human again and he’s almost over The Thing. Both are huge reliefs.

He’s not exactly sure what it was that made him stop agonizing over The Thing. Part of it was Jonghyun’s advice, yeah, because he _was_ right, but he thinks mostly, he just got over it. His brain decided to stop caring almost as easily as it started. It’ll be another few months before it happens again, Taemin thinks, and he’s grateful for that.

The other four come home all at once to him having some cereal for lunch at the kitchen table. He stops them by holding up a finger when they all try to exclaim and talk and shit. He doesn’t want praises and comforts and everything. He just wants to forget about it, and he knows the perfect plan. He takes his time in swallowing his cereal before he opens his mouth.

“Glad that _cat_ astrophe is finally over, right?” he grins.

There is a solid ten seconds of silence following the very first words out of his mouth since he turned into a cat over a week ago. Then Jonghyun groans, Kibum tries extremely hard to not encourage Taemin with laughter, Jinki smiles the smuggest smile he’s ever smiled, and Minho grumbles viciously as he pulls out his wallet to slap some money into Jinki’s hand.


End file.
